NFL Sunday Update: Okay, I have been having fun thinking and talking about the idiocy going on up in Oregon. And, so far, that is all it has been, but there are real fears about what will transpire when the Feds finally interact a little more strenuously. So far, it seems both the Feds and locals have been pretty smart and letting it play out and seeing what happens without going all Ruby Ridge or Waco gonzo. The protest and action in Burns really does seem to have been peaceful, and the locals seem to want little to do with the nut bags that then split off and went out to the Malheur Wildlife Refuge. It is an extremely remote location, and there have yet to be any homicides, shootings, kidnapping or other serious criminal offenses that would elevate the issue into terrorism or other major federal felonies. Let’s hope it stays that way.

But this is Trash Talk, and we have a full slate of games. The big one locally is of course the Sea Squawks here in the Big Toaster to take on the Cardinals. Hard to tell how long either team will play their key personnel, but they will all (mostly) start and play. It will not affect either team that much for playoff seeding, and won’t affect the Cards at all. It’s a pick em, but these two always put on a good show. Skins were all over the ‘Boys early, but Dallas is catching up and getting momentum. Pats/Fish, Bills/Jets, Steelers/Browns and Lions/Bears all within a touchdown nearing the start of the fourth quarter.

Going to take the Broncos over Chargers, Chefs over Raiders and Panthers over Bucs in the late afternoon bloc. Though it would be real nice, and much appreciated, if the Bucs would knock off the Panthers! The bigger got flexed to Sunday Night, i.e. Vikes at Packers in the finally Frozen Tundra. I am not going to pick against the green and gold at Lambeau, but this could be a great game. Get yer Cheeseheads on!

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As we close another year out, thanks to one and all for joining us here. And I hope that one person, long a fixture on this blog, that is right about now surely missed…Freepatriot…can see this. For Freep, Go Oklahoma!

As I write, Boomer Sooner is down 17 to 23 to Clemson. I have no idea how to pick this game. There are a hundred reasons why I ought to like the Sooners here. But Bob Stoops is the anti-Belichick, he really does not usually win big games with championships on the line. A little Dabo will do ya.

Later tonight, the other final four game goes off with Michigan State taking on Alabama in the Cotton Bowl. Most of the media attention has been on the Nick Saban mentor and Mark Dantonio plebe meme. I find that hard to buy after all these years. They are both great coaches, and both great teams. Alabama will probably win, but my heart is with Michigan State. Can’t stand the Big Ten/B1G, but they are better than the SEC. And East Lansing rocks.

Every ounce of rooting goes out to the Northwestern Fighting Journalists, but the Tennessee Vols are better than you think, and I am not going to bet against them. My city is full of Irish and Buckeyes. A decidedly unpleasant situation. Two diseases at one time, in the same place. One of them has to not die I suppose, and I will, regrettably, take the Domers. Because I just can’t think about taking either Urban Meyer or Ohio State, much less them together. Never.

Gators versus Wolverweenies is a great game. Maybe as good, interesting and perplexing a matchup as there is in the bowl schedule this year. It is also Marcy versus Jim White, which has heretofore only occurred in women’s softball. But, here we are on the gridiron. I’ve no clue who to take here, but it is hard to root for any team coached by Mr. Khaki Pants, dude is insane.

The only other bowl – until the championship game – that is really worth mentioning is the Rose Bowl. That would be the Stanford Tree versus Herky Hawkeye. I have been to football in a lot of states, in a lot of places, and at a lot of schools. But I have never been in a more magical place than the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It is not just the fabled parade. It is not just the pageantry. It is the place. Simply magical. There is just a feeling and a vibe that comes from the location and the structure itself. Kirk Ferentz is one of the more underrated coaches in the business. He and the Hawks are class. But never bet against a Pac team in the Rose Bowl against a Big-10 team. Never. Any given year, you might not win, but overall, it is one of the soundest bets in the history of man. I’ll take that bet.

So, as we reach the end of yet another year at Emptywheel, again thank you. Tomorrow is a new year, and it will be even brighter and better than the last. Rock on friends, and have a safe and great New Years Eve.

Bmaz is a rather large saguaro cactus in the Southwestern Sonoran desert. A lover of the Constitution, law, family, sports, food and spirits. As you might imagine, a bit prickly occasionally. Bmaz has attended all three state universities in Arizona, with both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Arizona State University, and with significant post-graduate work (in physics and organic chemistry, go figure) at both the University of Colorado in Boulder and the University of Arizona. Married, with both a lovely child and a giant Sasquatch dog. Bmaz has been a participant on the internet since the early 2000’s, including active participation in the precursor to Emptywheel, The Next Hurrah. Formally joined the Emptywheel blog as an original contributing member at its founding in 2007. Bmaz grew up around politics, education, sports and, most significantly, cars; notably around Formula One racing and Concours de Elegance automobile restoration and showing. Currently lives in the Cactus Patch with his lovely wife and beast of a dog, and practices both criminal and civil trial law.

“High, everyone!”
.Wipes a tear.
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Gotta pull for Freep’s Sooners.
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As for tomorrow, I fear Marcy and Mr. Khaki Pants will prevail unless the Gator offensive line and quarterback manage to begin playing football again instead of whatever it is they’ve done the last few games.

Stepping aside from “College” football – really the minor league gladiator school for King Roger the Clown’s games – to look at the way the NYT treated Philly sports in the aftermath of Lurie shitcanning Chip Kelly: Philadelphia sports described by “defeat … grim and routine and fetid with historic ineptitude.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/31/sports/football/philadelphia-eagles-chip-kelly.html?_r=0
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Making the rubble bounce much, Times? The worm will turn, eventually.
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I have a hard time watching “Major College” football any more knowing just how exploited those kids are, how few of them make the pros, and how much money the adults are making off their back. 15 or 20 years ago, there was a kid from the neighborhood where I then lived who was recruited and signed by one of those football factories. He’d been one of the best RBs in the state, so they promptly turned him into a DB. A year or two into his scholarship time there, he suffered a severe broken leg during the game – compound fracture, almost lost the leg. Eventually he healed, but….
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Shortly thereafter his scholarship was gone – he couldn’t produce, so it went to someone who could – and he went from major college football player to college force-out working for his grandfather, doing basement cleanouts and recycling old appliances in a pickup truck held together with baling wire. His grandfather passed some years ago and I believe the kid is still there doing the same thing. I’m willing to bet for every major-college product who gets to play a snap in the pros, there are 5 or 10 like the kid from my old neighborhood.
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Sorry to be a buzzkill, but there it is.

And yet, that guy can’t pay for a beer in any bar in town because everyone wants to hear his story of that 89 yard run in ’03, and for every guy who blew out a knee and lost a scholarship, there are ten accountants counting their beans in misery/comfort but cursing every moment they drive in their Prius and would trade it all tomorrow for fifteen months as a Division 1 football player. Not sure how that fits in, but sure it’s pretty close to true. Ah, The American Dream(s).

That guy can’t buy a beer in town because gentrification has priced him out of buying one, and that guy is back living in the only project in town. If it weren’t for the project, he wouldn’t be able to live in the town b/c housing prices have more-than-doubled – even across the street from the project. And the yuppies who moved into the neighborhood have no idea who he was, nor would they care about some townie, assuming they even noticed him. He’s black and they’re white.

Apparently the NCAA requires student athletes to have health insurance but does not, itself, provide that insurance. So it often comes from the school, and there are no requirements as to how great the coverage needs to be. So, many injured athletes end up paying out of pocket for a lot. See link below as one example. And of course, an injured student can be cut if she can’t play, and then the scholarship disappears, and she can’t afford to go to school any more. Which just puts her in the same boat as other poor students, you might say. But still, getting mangled (without pay) on behalf of your school/employer, then fired because you can’t perform any longer, is disconcerting. On the other hand, many professions are that way, aren’t they? I recall the case of the New York lawyer, who was the ethics partner of a firm, who was fired by his firm after bringing ethics charges against some of them (i.e., doing his job) to the State Bar. Firing upheld. So there.
.http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1595326-ncaa-policies-for-student-athlete-medical-insurance-breakdown

Actually, the ACA requires that all students have health insurance, which supercedes whatever the NCAA rules said in 2011 about insurance for athletes. Many schools offer a bare minimum policy for students not covered by their parents, which isn’t great but it’s something.

jeez. what the hell is going on with these scores? did defense decline with el nino?

alabama 38-0? what?

clemson 37-17?

not mentioning dead opponents by name because family folks have not yet decided whether to claim the body.

arizona 45?

appalachian state 31 (is that the 50k ohio or merely miami of ohio?) when my father taught at a sister college (college!) to appalachian, they both were tiny schools. jeez. now bro of eastern carolina.

louisiana tech 47.

western kentucky 45.

boise state 55.

georgia southern 58.

i’m bored. you get the idea.

could it be that teams are not just getting paid at the first of the season to get fucked by a power team fearful of a loss in the first game or two,

but also getting paid to be in a bowl game and lose so adept gets good money?

Give me the Rose Bowl any day. Bmaz is right, that’s a place to watch a football game.

Oh, and Mike Trout will bat .323 with 35 HR, 120 RBI and 28 SB, and the Angels will lose in the first round for pitching reasons. But it will still be worth watching and the artistry on the field will make it so.

it’s the reinforcing cycle leading to perpetual repetition that get’s me. bowl games are getting to be like bad tv movies. who in charge cares about the quality of the game offered as long as enough people watch them to make money for the network, the conference, and the a dept. quality spirals downward.

Was bartending last night at a Sparty Party at my parents’ home . . . it got really quiet about halftime, but a good time was still had by all.
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Given bmaz’ comments in the post about the vaunted Pac-Whatever in the Rose Bowl, I thought I’d just drop this little historical nugget from the Rose Bowl wiki:

Originally titled the “Tournament East–West football game”, the first Rose Bowl was played on January 1, 1902, starting the tradition of New Year’s Day bowl games. The football game was added in 1902 to help fund the cost of the Rose Parade. The inaugural game featured Fielding H. Yost’s dominating 1901 Michigan team, representing the East, which crushed a previously 3-1-2 team from Stanford University, representing the West, by a score of 49–0 after Stanford quit in the third quarter.

I have “disliked” Ohio State for some forty years now, despite being born and raised in Ohio. I think it is because of the sense of entitlement, or the arrogance, that came across over and over again, after they would keep beating up on others. Anyone else ever sense that with another team?

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Does a conference count? … i.e. SEC. And tied into that, does a sports network count? Because ESPN is the CNN of sports, w/their non-stop circle jerk of all things SEC
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NFL = Cowboys. “America’s team” give me a freakin break. According to whom?
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NBA = Lakers. Their best player is a cheap shot artist. And Laker fan is the worst

Unfortunately, no. Blecker’s brief is nutbag quackery that is literally an embarrassment to real attorneys. I question whether the 2nd will even allow it to be considered, much less rely on it in the absence of a toilet paper shortage.

I am with Blecker on the Pats side in this affair. But, legally, his brief is pure unadulterated quackery. It is so bad that I feel sorry for his students, because they are not getting what they are paying for as to their legal education.

The general rule with amicus briefs is that they get read and, if they’re from a nutcase or a gadfly, they get filed away and forgotten. If, OTOH, the amicus is written by a respected law professor who’s an expert in the field and raises points that the judge(s) want to make, then it might get cited. You see that more often at the Supreme Court level than in the courts of appeals, mainly because the Supreme Court is making policy decisions when they decide things. Courts of Appeals don’t, as a rule, do policy.
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You can rely on the parties’ lawyers to make all the respectable arguments available. Amicus briefs do not too much other than sate (while also whetting) their funders’ appetites for attention and looking Serious.

With a gleam in his eye, Robert Blecker, a nationally known retributivist advocate of the death penalty, has managed to alienate both sides of the debate on the politically divisive and morally complex issue of capital punishment. But his position as designated outcast is nothing new, nor is his strongly held conviction that the most vicious and callous offenders deserve to die and that society is morally obliged to execute those “worst of the worst” criminals.
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A radical at heart, like many who grew up in the 1960s, Professor Blecker railed against prevailing academic assumptions about the evils of capital punishment during his undergraduate years at Tufts, where he refused to major and nevertheless in 1969 earned a B.A. with honors in three fields, while vehemently protesting against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.
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At Harvard Law School, where he won the Oberman Prize for the best graduating thesis, Professor Blecker was one of only two students to publicly defend the death penalty. He went on to prosecute corrupt lawyers, cops, and judges and saw up close how the rich and powerful were given breaks denied to poor and powerless offenders. Later a Harvard University Fellow in Law and Humanities and also a playwright, Professor Blecker’s production “Vote NO!”, an anti-federalist case against adopting the Constitution, premiered in 1987 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and traveled to 16 states, convincing even staunchly patriotic audiences to vote against the Constitution.
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Still rebellious, Professor Blecker espouses his carefully considered, yet almost universally unpalatable position in the academic community. Based on 13 years of interviewing convicted killers, and hundreds of hours inside maximum security prisons and on death rows, he makes a powerful case for the death penalty as retribution, but only for the “worst of the worst” offenders.
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The sole keynote speaker supporting the death penalty at major conferences and at the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, he was also the lone American advocate at an international conference in Geneva on the death penalty sponsored by Duke University Law School.
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Professor Blecker encourages emotional debate in his teaching and has cotaught his death penalty course with leading abolitionists—most recently Kevin Doyle, Director of New York’s Capital Defender’s Office—in order to give students both viewpoints. He also teaches Criminal Law, Constitutional History, and Criminals and Our Urge to Punish Them

Blecker should arguably be sanctioned for submitting such irrelevant meandering outside of the issues actually before the court on appeal. It may make for entertaining reading for Pats fans, but as a legal brief, it is simply embarrassing.

Wondering the same thing. First the Fiesta Bowl was the “Sunkist Fiesta Bowl”, and then the “Tostitos Fiesta Bowl”.
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No clue in the world what a Battlefrog is, but it sure cheapens the bowl when nobody knows what the host even is. Yuk.

Cheatin’ Bill will, magically, have traded for a draft pick that will just come up when McCaffery is still available.
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A fake fumble. I have never seen that. Not in a good 50 years of watching football. And for a TD.

The one bowl game I felt 99.9% sure about. Nothing against Iowa, but the Trees are the best team in the country.
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Alabama has a huge hole over the middle in their zone defense, and McCaffrey (sp?) would have 150 yds before halftime. And they’re just better than Clemson

So, why have there been so many blowouts in the ‘big games’ so far? Do some good teams get the heebie-jeebies when thrust into the spotlight? Or are the ranking people just plain wrong? (As to the latter, I don’t recall THAT much dissension as to the final four.)

I wasn’t surprised abt MSU, only bc they came from behind to win so often this year. Then again, so did OSU, and against shittier teams too. I thought the early season slop would do them in, but they kicked it in once MSU beat them. Plus, they know ND, in a way that MSU doesn’t know Bama.

I think Stanford just shocked and awed IA (plus Carly had given IA that bad juju). But IA also played the weaker side of the B1G this year. They’d have done better w/a game against OSU and/or UM, too.

Oddly, I expected FL would struggle bc of their lack of QB, but it was their superb defense that let them down. You gotta ask Jim about that one.

Wow, PSU QB Christian Hackenberg issues written statement announcing he is leaving to go to the draft. Thanks everybody from ex coach Bill O’Brien to the ballboys except for current coach James Franklin, who he clearly hates and wants to escape from.
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Brutal.

2nd half of the early games and the Patsies are losing, the Jets are losing, the Ryan Mallet Experience continues to score, and the Steelers are winning AND NO ONE IS BOTHERING TO TALK TRASH?
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What a bunch of wussies.
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And Suh continues to try stomping on Biebs. Suh did “fall on” Biebs’ ankle in the first half. I guess if Miami can’t win, they can try to cause injury. Goood sportsmanship there. ‘fins.

Don’t let the water bottles they’re holding fool you – the Kraafts look half in the bag, as normal.
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A friend w/in the range of the Patsies radio broadcast relates how their own announcers said they “have the look of a one-and-done team”. The way they’re playing a team that is clearly not that into it tells me he may be right.

The bigger got flexed to Sunday Night, i.e. Vikes at Packers in the finally Frozen Tundra. I am not going to pick against the green and gold at Lambeau, but this could be a great game. Get yer Cheeseheads on!

Mwaaaahahahahahaha!
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Note that Young Mr. Football did not get in the game today. I’ll bet Jerry Jones is right now on the phone to that homeless guy out in front of the Browns HQ (he’s the guy who makes the big decisions in Cleveland, dontcha know) pitching deals to get Football back to Texas, where he can party with college girls and act all Mac Davis/Nick Nolte/North Dallas Forty like it’s the 70s all over again.
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Thank you, Fat Rex.

Then again, there are images around showing RG3’s family wearing custom white Dallas jerseys bearing the name “RGIII” and the number 10.
Later reports corrected that the fans wearing the jersey were not family members. But they still were wearing them.

Please let it be. It’ll guarantee the ‘Skins two division wins next year. Griffin made $6.7m this year for riding the bench, not bad pay for doing less. The $16m guarantee for injury must have looked like real money even to Snyder. Expect that’s where Cousins negotiations for next year start.
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Whoda guessed Cousins for having the highest completion % and in the top 10 QB stats in the NFL? The sports shrink that got him over the yips earned whatever he cost plus some.
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Now we’ll get to see if the ‘Skins can play with a team that has a winning record. Dunno if I’d prefer they play the Cheeseheads or Vikes next week. Their history with the Squawks is not good. What do y’all think?

Quiet as Griffin’s been ya wonder if they’ve negotiated an incentive for keeping his trap shut. It’s certainly a change.
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What a weird matrix on playoffs. Vikes win tonight = ‘Skins vs Cheeseheads. Cheeseheads win it’s ‘Skins vs Squawks. A tie is the only way the Vikes and Norv Turner get to come back to D.C. to play. Times and dates all TBD. Bizarre.
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Looks like the Vikes just sealed it.

This is too rich: the antepenultimate straw on the way to Lurie shitcanning Chip Kelly appears to have been his f’g with the Iggles Holiday party, something Lurie is deeply personally invested in, demanding it be rescheduled so as to accommodate his game preparation schedule. http://www.csnphilly.com/blog/700-level/how-eagles-holiday-party-helped-get-chip-kelly-fired?p=ya5nbcs&ocid=yahoo
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This, as you might imagine, did not sit well with Ownership. Who knows what Santa thought….
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One wonders whether Lurie is having any regrets about firing Kelly, seeing as how the Iggles won today. I’ll bet it’s rolling around his head “did I wait too long? Could we have won one or two of those losses had I fired him earlier? Could we have made the Playoffs?”
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Note also that one of the rumors floating around is that the Iggles are looking at Andy Reid’s O-coordinator out in KC. Deeply ironic.

I think everyone but folks in KC and Oakland are watching Ol’ Noodlearm & Co. The Chefs broadcast is now cutting in and out to show updates of the Donks v Bolts. Lots of scoreboard watchers at Arrowhead right now, especially with the Bolts now in the lead.

Cleveland fires their GM and coach.
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Not that they bore the responsibility for the machinations leading up to and the drafting of Young Mr. “I’m concussed so I’ll go hang out in a bar in Vegas” Football. That’s on the owner, but he won’t fire himself….
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Could Young Mr. “soon to have drunk his career away” Football not go in civvies and attend the frickin’ game? Stand on the sideline like a real teammate? Attend practice and maybe learn something by just watching? I suppose not. He seems to be another affluenza sufferer and thereby immune to sense and class.

ESPN reports Young Mr. Football was, as a part of the concussion protocol, required to check in yesterday morning at the team’s medical facility. And did not.
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You wanna talk about “breach of contract”? I think he’s just given the Browns a huge gift, the proverbial hanging beach ball right down the middle, b/c if this plays out the way I think it will they’ll find a way to cut him and void his contract. Ask Alex Rodriguez about the bonuses the Yankees refused to pay him. Yes, he’ll grieve about it, but I can see the NFLPA looking for a way to do the absolute minimum for this little punk. If he gets cut, some team might think about putting him on the practice squad or something – at the league minimum.

No, I got it right. We’re just looking at it from different perspectives. I’m looking at it from the angle of Cleveland’s dollars and cents and draft picks.
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You’re looking at it from the perspective of a drunken punk suffering from affluenza and a concussion or two.
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Cleveland will be only too happy to get rid of him and sell his ass to JerryWorld for as much as they can milk out of that cash cow. Jerry will pay a lot, too much IMHO, for him. Everyone walks away happy. At least until buyer’s remorse kicks in.

No, I am looking at it from an All-American hero screwed up by the most dysfunctional franchise in the last 20 years. Sure, Manziel did himself no favors, but maybe he was sick and tired of being associated with the idiots that are the current Cleveland Browns.
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Cleveland, and the Browns name, are cherished and worthy names historically, but the current, not to mention previous, group of dopes leading it are embarrassing themselves, a great city, a proud franchise, and the league in general. Manziel may be a twerp, but about now he looks no worse than the incompetent morons he has had to deal with. Hey, breaking news!….pro football players are grown men and party every now and then. Manziel did not kill, shoot, abuse, batter or rape anybody. And he didn’t even get arrested. Yet the holier than thou jackass idiots at the Browns organization treated him like he was 13 years old. “Johnny needs to do this” and “Johnny needs to do that”. Like they were Belichick and the Pats, and Manziel had actually done something heinous. Fuck Haslam and the Browns. Good on Manziel for telling them to go blow themselves.

I don’t believe Fox.
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The Chefs win, and now are waiting to see if Denver wins or loses, to know who and where they will play in the playoffs. Fox gives a quick “good for the Chefs, who now need to know what happens in Denver” — and then they send KC viewer to watch “bonus coverage” of Tampa Bay v Carolina.
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Thousands of KC viewers have just thrown their beers through their televisions. Ours survived, only because Mrs Dr Peterr did not have a beer in her hand, and her scream was insufficient to shatter the screen.

Thanks for the update. I can only assume there is some bizarre broadcast contract clause that prohibited Fox from switching over to a game featuring a division opponent.
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Either that, or Roger Goodell is a nutjob and forced Fox to screw with Chefs fans.
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Or, of course, both.

and i ain’t kiddin’ – when michigan played that no-name team, the michigan players’ shoulders looked half-a-foot wider than that blue/orange teams’ shoulders. players like that used to romp down the field at nebraska.

My Pats fans out there, if any, it is 297 hours and 35 minutes to game time and
shut-the-fuckup to Phil Sims – Peyton Manning has not resurrected from the dead
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You Hatriots out there (you know who you are) – we know what you’ll be doin
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